<p>I realize I will need to visit an attorney to actually draft a new will - but I’d like to collect some ideas and suggestions first. Present will is old - dates back to kids being infants and appointed a guardian and established a trust with a person overseeing the trust. Now that S1 is over 18 and S2 is 16 - what do I need to do? I guess I still need a guardian for S2. Would not make sense to have a 19-year-old who is away at college being his younger brother’s guardian, right? Leave 50% of assets directly to S1 and 50% remain in trust for S2? Just need some ideas. I was actually driving back from a weekend away with hubby recently and realized that if the car careened off the road and we were both killed we don’t have a current will. (I’m so cheery!) Lawyers on CC and anyone who has recently updated their will - please weigh in.</p>
<p>A lot depends on how much you have–if your assets are enough so that estate taxes will be significant, you really need to see a lawyer (I need to do this myself; thanks for reminding me).</p>
<p>Not a large estate by any means - just our primary residence and retirement funds. No issue with estate taxes - not a complicated situation at all.</p>
<p>We left our trust intact when S (our only) turned 18. Our lawyer advised a distribution schedule of a third at age 25, a third at age 30 and the rest at age 35. His trustee can authorize larger amounts from the trust at an earlier age of course, if wants to purchase a house, start a business. We all felt giving an 18 year old a substantial amount of money was not a good idea. He just does not have the experience to handle it. We are giving him a sum of money to manage in college for his 4 years of living expenses to let him “cut his teeth” on financial management. Hopefully we will all live long into our kids’ adulthood and this will be a hypothetical.</p>
<p>We rewrote our wills several years ago after our youngest was in college. First, it stipulated that nothing could be divided until the youngest was out of school, and a certain sum had been put aside for her wedding. As we had paid for the other 2 DD’s weddings, we felt that should come out of the pot before it was divided. Then, we stipulated that they would receive 1/2 of their inheritance when they turned 25, and the rest when they turned 30. While they are not wild with their money, we felt that this would allow them to have time to think about what to do with the funds, if anything should happen to us.</p>
<p>Pick a trustee you trust. Give them the broadest authority you can give. IMHO, life is too unpredictable for rigid schedules.</p>
<p>A lot depends on your kids, I think. Better to take advice from an attorney than strangers on a forum (but that won’t stop me from chiming in :)).</p>
<p>I think many people with reasonably substantial assets think that 18 is still too young to release in full to the “child.” As another poster mentioned, a schedule of 1/3,1/3,1/3 or 1/2, 1/2 at different age milestones is worth considering.</p>
<p>Our son was clearly hugely responsible wrt financial matters by the time he was off to college. So we have even made him our Executor and Trustee rather than have it be an “older” adult relative/friend (not right away when he was a freshman, but before he graduated). We did discuss with him and leave in writing a number of people we felt would be wise advisors to him. If and when your child is ready, I think this is a huge vote of confidence in them, which only serves to enhance their sense of responsibility. But it is surely not applicable to every family.</p>
<p>DS has an older daughter and she is not irresponsible, but even so our young adult S was the clear better choice for such a role … just proving that everything depends on your own children.</p>
<p>Remember that one-third, one-third, on-third won’t really be one third, one third, one third. It would be one-third, one half of the balance and one half of the balance. </p>
<p>I’m not a T&E lawyer, but my understanding is that in many cases it’s much better to make your children the beneficiaries of your retirement funds that to make them part of your estate. So, at least ask the lawyer you consult about that. </p>
<p>If you own a home, you need to take into account the possibility that one of your children will want to keep the home. Provide a mechanism for that to happen–what price would be used? Any limits on resale? That may strike you as unlikely, but if your will isn’t probated for a number of years 
it may be an issue. It’s come up in several families I know. </p>
<p>In one truly odd case, the older son wanted to keep the family home very badly. Guardian for second son said that he could only do that if he started paying rent for it and eventually bought it. Older son dropped out of college and got a job so he could keep the house. The younger son felt that it was his home and since it hadn’t been sold, he should be able to live in the house rent free with older brother without paying rent until he finished high school. Obviously, the older son didn’t think this was fair. He wanted to get a roommate who could help pay the rent. He also just didn’t want the responsibility of supervising the younger son. The whole thing got incredibly ugly. </p>
<p>In other cases, BOTH kids have wanted to keep the family residence. That can get ugly too. </p>
<p>So, just think through the issue.</p>
<p>Too late to edit, but I meant DH has an older daughter (in post #7), <em>not</em> DS. Thank goodness.</p>
<p>Ten years ago we went to an estate lawyer with the intention of making a simple will. We walked out with a trust, medical powers of attorney, wills, and a strong sense of how complicated things could be if there were any assets at all. Go see an estate lawyer. You can pay upfront or your heirs can pay. Paying upfront is much cheaper.</p>
<p>OMG, I Idid my will on legalzoom.com. This thread is making me think I need to do something far superior. Our only asset is our house. We have an only daughter who is 19 now. It wasnt that complicated.</p>
<p>Milkandsugar–I think it’s an individual thing. We’ve experienced several deaths in our extended family where there wasn’t any kind of will, much less all this estate planning. Generally, there really aren’t any “estates” in our family. There’s the life insurance and the proceeds from sale of home. Distributed among survivors. It went pretty smoothly. That would be the case for us, too. Home sold, kids split it. Pretty straightforward. My guess is that many folks on this thread have assets of a different order, which require a kind of planning not everyone would need.</p>
<p>We have the medical powers of attorney, the trusts and all that. We are updating a few things this year, the assets have increased, we may change the distribution ages etc…We are also changing the trustee. We trust everyone involved including S, we just don’t want him to be in a position to be taken advantage of, most of my friends with trust funds did not have access to their money until at least 30. I don’t know if it is a good idea for a 25 year old to have too much money.</p>
<p>But what about FA? I’ve seen plenty of FA forms that wanted to know if there was a trust for the kids and when it would be payable, etc. How does that play into setting up these instruments?</p>
<p>milkandsugar- I did my will & my parents wills on legalzoom and also the power of attny & trusts. We had fancy expensive trusts from years ago and these seem fine, but we KNOW exactly what we want and don’t have an incredibly complex situation. Some one owning a business, considering estate taxes, generation skipping taxes, etc will want legal advice not just legal forms, but unless you are looking at estate tax types of assets and/or business interests, you are probably fine with LZ.</p>
<p>CD- I don’t think a family living trust counts on financial aid and the trusts in wills would not count unless the parents died, so as long as the mom or dad is alive, the financial aid forms should be the same as without the trusts in wills & living trusts</p>
<p>We did the whole package a few years ago… things are much more complicated now that Congress, in their infinite wisdom, allowed estate taxes to expire this year - and resume next year… </p>
<p>Here is a pretty good article on the mess</p>
<p>[Estate</a> Tax: What You Need to Know for 2010 - CBS MoneyWatch.com](<a href=“MoneyWatch: Financial news, world finance and market news, your money, product recalls updated daily - CBS News”>MoneyWatch: Financial news, world finance and market news, your money, product recalls updated daily - CBS News)</p>
<p>One thing my lawyer did was shift Title of my home to my Trust. I didn’t want money distributed on a rigid schedule, but on a LONG gradual schedule, with permission to invade for certain items. My fear is that a young person could lose his/her assets in a divorce or in a start-up business.</p>
<p>I was left to handle 2 estates, with many stocks (often worth not more than $1000), and very time consuming. It was so helpful to consolidate.</p>
<p>PS-My parents put 1/2 into UGMA account for S, then died in year prior to his attending college. I wish they had gotten decent financial planning advice about consequences of that decision.</p>
<p>I am handling an estate now with old savings bonds, perhaps 100 of them, each purchased at least a month a part, good interest rate, but now all coming due over the next few years, really quite inconvenient!</p>
<p>We have been remarkably negligent in this department. When one sees a lawyer about a will, what kind of paperwork does one bring along?</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure we walked into the lawyers office with no paperwork. Just lots of questions. :-)</p>
<p>If you are really worried about kids looking money in divorce or to business partners there are trusts that skip a generation and go to the not yet existing grandchildren. It allows the trustees to use the money for living expenses and such, but people outside the family cannot take control of the money.</p>